combating gender-based violence and protecting and supporting victims; and

promoting gender equality and women's rights across the world.

In 2017 the European Commission concentrated its efforts on three main areas:

Reducing the gender pay gap: the Commission presented a concrete Action plan
to reduce the gender pay gap by 2019. The Action plan includes, amongst
others, a call by the Commission to the European Parliament and the
Member States to swiftly adopt the work-life balance proposal
of April 2017. It also calls on governments and social partners to
adopt concrete measures to improve gender balance in decision-making.

Violence against women: 2017 was dedicated as to Ending Violence against Women with the No Non Nein campaign.
The Commission dedicated €15 million funding to NGO working in this
field. The Commission extended the funding to 2018. The 2017 Annual
Fundamental Rights Colloquium was dedicated to Women's Rights in
Turbulent Times, addressed violence and harassment against women in our
societies as well as the economic and political inequality between women
and men, particularly focusing on the gender pay gap and on work-life
balance.

The European Commission has also initiated a strategy that will focus on women's participation specifically in the digital sector
to address the new challenges that the digital future brings. The strategy will look into three main areas: breaking negative stereotypes, skills and education as well as women's participation in the entrepreneurial scene of the digital sector. These focus areas are based on the upcoming study (to be published on 08/03), whose findings reiterate the issue that not only are there less women participating in the digital sector but also that this number is decreasing.

What are the key findings of the 2018 Commission's Report on equality between women and men?

Employment of women: it continued to increase slowly but steadily and reached 66.6 % in the third quarter of 2017 (78.1% for men). Despite this progress, women are not achieving full economic independence. According to a recent survey,
in comparison to men, women still tend to be employed less, are
employed in lower-paid sectors, work on average 6 hours longer per week
than men, but have fewer paid hours, take more career breaks, and face
fewer and slower promotions.

Gender pay gap: women still earn on average 16 % less per hour than men in the EU. The gap varies greatly from one Member State to another. .

Women on boards: women account for just a quarter ofboard members in
the largest publicly listed companies registered in EU Member States.
France is the only Member State in which there was over 40 % of women on
boards.

Women in politics: the situation is varies greatly.
National parliaments in Sweden, Finland and Spain had at least 40 % of
women each gender, while in six countries (Croatia, Cyprus, Greece,
Latvia, Malta and Hungary) women accounted for less than 20 % of
members. Similarly, governments had a as many women as men in France,
Germany, Slovenia and Sweden; while women were completely absent from
the Hungarian government.

Violence against women: remains a problem. According to the EIGE 'Gender Equality Index 2017, when it comes to the measurement of violence against women', on a scale of 1 to 100, the EU's score is 27.5 out of 100. The score varies between countries, ranging from 22.1 in Poland to 44.2 in Bulgaria.

What is the EU doing to help women remain in the labour market?

The European Pillar of Social Rights establishes that equality of
treatment and opportunities between women and men must be ensured in
fostered in all areas, including regarding participation in the labour
market, terms and conditions of employment and career progression. To
put these words into action, the European Commission adopted a comprehensive package of policy and legal measures to improve the Work-life balance for working parents and careers in April 2017. The
proposed directive aims at establishing an EU-wide right to paternity
leave and strengthens the existing right to parental leave. Fathers
would be able to take at least 10 working days of paternity leave around
the time of birth of the child, compensated at least at the level of
sick pay. Also, 4 months of parental leave would be compensated at least
at sick pay level and be non-transferable from one parent to the other.
Parents would have the right to request to take leave in a flexible way
(part-time or in a piecemeal way) and the age of the child up to which
parents can take leave would be increased from 8 to 12 years.

The Commission's proposal further introduces leave for workers caring
for seriously ill or dependent relatives, who would be able to take 5
days off per year, compensated at least at sick pay level.

Finally, the proposal sets rights to request more flexible working
arrangements for all working parents of children up to 12 and carers
with dependent relatives, not only in terms of time (flexible and/or
reduced working hours) but also in terms of place of work (teleworking).

The initiative also includes 10 non-legislative measures, which will
support Member States in the enforcement of existing discrimination and
dismissal protection legislation, encourage a gender-balanced use of
family-related leaves and flexible working arrangements, ensure better
use of European funds to improve long-term and childcare services and
remove economic disincentives for second earners which prevent women
from accessing the labour market or working full-time.